Quantum superposition, entanglement, and state teleportation of a microorganism on an electromechanical oscillator

• Published in: Science bulletin (Beijing) Vol. 61; no. 2; pp. 163 - 171
• Main Authors: Li, Tongcang, Yin, Zhang-Qi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Elsevier B.V 01-01-2016; Science China Press
• Subjects: aluminum; bacteria; Chemistry/Food Science; cryopreservation; Cryopreserved microorganism; Earth Sciences; Electromechanical Oscillator; Engineering; Humanities and Social Sciences; Life Sciences; mechanics; microwave radiation; multidisciplinary; Physics; Quantum entanglement; Quantum superposition; Quantum teleportation; Schrödinger’s cat; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Cryopreserved microorganism; Electromechanical Oscillator; Quantum entanglement; Quantum teleportation; Quantum superposition; Schrödinger’s cat; Schrödinger's cat
• ISSN: 2095-9273; 2095-9281
• DOI: 10.1007/s11434-015-0990-x

Schrödinger’s thought experiment to prepare a cat in a superposition of both alive and dead states reveals profound consequences of quantum mechanics and has attracted enormous interests. Here we propose a straightforward method to create quantum superposition states of a living microorganism by putting a small cryopreserved bacterium on top of an electromechanical oscillator. Our proposal is based on recent developments that the center-of-mass oscillation of a 15-μm-diameter aluminum membrane has been cooled to its quantum ground state (Teufel et al. in Nature 475:359, 2011), and entangled with a microwave field (Palomaki et al. in Science 342:710, 2013). A microorganism with a mass much smaller than the mass of the electromechanical membrane will not significantly affect the quality factor of the membrane and can be cooled to the quantum ground state together with the membrane. Quantum superposition and teleportation of its center-of-mass motion state can be realized with the help of superconducting microwave circuits. More importantly, the internal states of a microorganism, such as the electron spin of a glycine radical, can be entangled with its center-of-mass motion and teleported to a remote microorganism. Our proposal can be realized with state-of-the-art technologies. The proposed setup is a quantum-limited magnetic resonance force microscope. Since internal states of an organism contain information, our proposal also provides a scheme for teleporting information or memories between two remote organisms.